Spotlight on Cate Blanchett at the Costume Designers Guild Awards
The 18th Costume Designers Guild Awards started off with a bang: a montage of the year in costume design demonstrating the range of genres and historical eras brought vividly to the screen in shows including “Ray Donovan,” ”Empire,” “Outlander,” “Transparent,” “The Wiz Live!” and “Mad Men” and in films including “Cinderella,” “Brooklyn,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Beasts of No...
The New Player on the Oscar Night Party Scene
There’s a new kid in town on the 2016 Oscar night viewing party scene, adding to the handful of legacy events that mark Hollywood’s biggest night in spectacular fashion. The location, right in the epicenter of where it’s all happening – across the street from the Dolby Theatre, where the Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 28. But Roger and Lynn Neal are no newbies to the scene, having produced awards season dinners and...
‘Spotlight,’ ‘The Big Short,’ ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Veep’ Top WGA Awards
If the show had been televised, 2016 WGA Awards ceremony in Los Angeles would almost certainly be nominated itself as best comedy/variety special. Rarely has an awards show that honors excellence in film and television– much of it very serious or dramatic in nature—been filled with the amount of humor, wit and irony that was brought to the table during ceremonies focused on the craft of writing. (Ceremonies were also held in New York...
Iñárritu Doubles the Pleasure at the DGA Awards
Even as the controversy over the second year of #OscarsSoWhite simmers down a few notches with the Academy’s accelerated efforts to diversify its membership, Hollywood’s major professional guilds continue to make clear statements that could be termed #NotSoWhite. The Screen Actors Guild recently anointed actor Idris Elba with two SAG awards after he was left out of Oscar nominations, and Saturday night, it was the Directors...
Secrets Behind the Screenplays: Nominated Writers Open Up at WGA’s Beyond Words
You know it’s going to be an entertaining evening when a “fight” breaks out amongst acclaimed screenwriters of some of the most honored films this awards season. That’s what happened at the Writers Guild of America West’s Beyond Words Feb. 4 event, which spotlights the writers of original and adapted screenplays who are up for WGA Awards. Most of them, not surprisingly, are also nominated for Oscars. Screenwriter John August moderated...